In cold region such as Hokkaido, when placing concrete in winter, it is necessary to carry out appropriate curing. However, blast furnace slag cement concrete requires longer curing than ordinary Portland cement concrete. Therefore, in order to increase the use of blast furnace cement for concrete production, it is necessary to improve strength development in early age. The purpose of this study is to clarify the influence of inorganic salts on the reaction of blast furnace slag powder. In this study, we focused on hardened blast furnace slag and calcium hydroxide to clarify the influence of inorganic slats. As a result, it was clarified that the initial strength enhancement of the sample mixed with sodium sulfate was high. It was confirmed by solid-state NMR that the aluminate hydrates and the Si chain polymerization differed depending on the inorganic salt to be mixed.
In cold region such as Hokkaido, when placing concrete in winter, it is necessary to carry out appropriate curing. However, blast furnace slag cement concrete requires longer curing than ordinary Portland cement concrete. Therefore, in order to increase the use of blast furnace cement for concrete production, it is necessary to improve initial strength development. The purpose of this study is to clarify the influence of hardening accelerator on the reaction of blast furnace slag powder. In this study, we focused on hardened blast furnace slag and calcium hydroxide to clarify the influence of accelerators. As a result, it was clarified that the initial strength enhancement of the sample mixed with nitrite-type accelerator was high. Moreover, it confirmed that the nitrite type-AFm was produced as a hydrate in sample with nitrite-type accelerator. Also, it was shown from the results of phase equilibrium model calculation that the volume of the hydrate did not change significantly.
The use of blast furnace cement is being promoted to reduce CO2 emissions during cement production, but in cold climates such as Hokkaido region there is a concern that initial strength of blast furnace cement may decrease by using air entrained agent (AE) for improving freeze-thaw resistance and scaling may occur. However, increase with air content decrease compressive strength, although it is possible to take measures by mixing a novel accelerator using a combination of a polyol and a sulfate and a new frost damage inhibitor for concrete such as oil type as a new method that is independent of air content, it has not been investigated whether the combined use of these agents suppresses the development of initial strength. Moreover, the effect of combined use of accelerator and a frost damage inhibitor on the reaction of blast furnace slag is not clear. Therefore, in this research, we clarified the mechanism of the strength development of the hardened blast furnace slag cement using the frost damage inhibitor and the accelerator together by performing a strength test and phase composition analysis by XRD Rietveld method and SEM observation. As a result, it was found that the C3S and C3A reaction rate increased by the accelerator, and the frost damage inhibitor did not inhibit the reaction.
The use of blast furnace slag cement for concrete production with air entrained agent(AE)for improving freeze-thaw resistance in cold climates such as Hokkaido region cause the decrease of the initial strength of concrete. In order to improve initial strength of concrete, a novel curing accelerator using a combination of a polyol type and a sulfate type has been developed, and a high hydration acceleration effect is obtained by previous reports. However, its hydration acceleration mechanism has not been clarified in detail. In this study, attempts were made to elucidate the mechanism of initial strength development of blast furnace slag cement by adding a new curing accelerator. Firstly, we confirmed the strength development and ultrasonic pulse velocity of hardened cement pastes with/without the hydration accelerator. And we investigated the phase assemblage in hardened cement pastes by XRD Rietveld method, and the degree of reaction of blast furnace slag in hardened blast furnace slag cement pastes was determined by backscattered electron image. As a result, it is possible to accelerate the hydration reaction of the aluminate phase by combining the polyol type and the sulfate type of agent, there is a possibility that the curing accelerator dissolves the portlandite to accelerate the reaction of the blast furnace slag fine powder.
Mercury intrusion porosimetry has been widely used as a method to measure the pore structure of cementitious materials, but considering the influence on the environment, a method that does not use mercury is required. Also, in the mercury intrusion porosimetry, the sample is dried before measurement, so the measurement result indicates the pore structure of the dried sample. Therefore, a thermoporometry method can be proposed as a method not requiring the use of mercury and drying process of specimen. The thermoporometry method estimates the porosity from the amount of heat generated during the freezing and thawing of water in the pore. So far, the authors have measured with a small size of sample, but in this study the thermoporometry method was applied to the bulk sample. As a result, peaks which could not be measured with a small size of sample could be detected. And it was clarified that blending blast furnace slag forms finer pore structure of hardened cement paste. Therefore, transport properties of hardened cement paste with BFS was improved. It was also clarified that the diffusion of chloride ions in hardened cement paste depends on the pore volume of 6nm or more.
The purpose of this study is to determine the tortuosity of cementitious materials containing blast furnace slag (BFS). Furthermore, the influence of tortuosity on multi-species transport into these materials is studied. The porosity and diffusivity of calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H) were predicted using a three-dimensional spatial distribution model, which were then fitted to Archie's law to determine tortuosity. The tortuosity increased with the slag replacement ratio, suggesting that the diffusion path for ions becomes complicated and lengthy due to slag addition. Thermoporometry was used to determine the pore size distribution of hydrated slag-blended cement. A partial replacement of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) with BFS modified the mineralogy (especially in the types of C-S-H), resulting in changes to the pore structure. The determined tortuosity and porosity were used in a reactive transport model to predict multi-species transport. Experimentally measured and simulated chloride profiles were in good agreement for hydrated OPC and slag-blended cements exposed to sodium chloride solutions. The causes for the low penetration rate of chloride in slag-blended cementitious materials are discussed considering their pore structure and surface electrical properties. The role of tortuosity on Cl-/OH- for the evaluation of chloride induced corrosion was also discussed.
The importance of maintenance and repair of existing concrete buildings has increased. Therefore, it is necessary to know the exact deterioration condition of a concrete building structure, so it is required to accurately measure the pore structure. As one of the measurement techniques, thermoporometry has been proposed. Thermoporometry does not need drying and applying high pressure to specimen during measurement, so there is little risk of damage to the cement paste. In this study, we measured some physical property(uniaxial compressive strength, ultrasonic velocity, electric conductivity, and chloride ion diffusion)and pore structure of OPC paste and fly ash cement paste. And we investigated the relationship between the physical properties and the pore structure measured by using thermoporometry and mercury intrusion porosimetry. As a result, the uniaxial compressive strength and the ultrasonic velocity can be estimated by using pore volume measured by thermoporometry and mercury intrusion porosimetry. Transport properties such as the electric conductivity and chloride ion diffusion could be estimated by separating each OPC paste and fly ash cement paste. And it was suggested that the diffusivity could be estimated by using the quantity of pore volume detected in the freezing process around -15℃ which is the connected capillary pore volume.
The purpose of this research is to understand the mass transfer characteristics of concrete to predict the durability of the concrete. There is a close relationship between transport properties of several ions and adsorption ability. It was reported that the adsorption ability of the concrete is changed with the calcium leaching of concrete caused by contact with such as groundwater in a long-term. It was also reported that the adsorption ability of the Calcium-silicate-hydrate(C-S-H)is dependent on its CaO/SiO2(Ca/Si)ratio, but the sample in their research is only White Portland Cement(WPC)and Blast Furnace Slag(BFS)cement. On the other hand, it is reported that FA cement has a high resistance to calcium leaching. In this study, leaching experiments using ammonium nitrate solution and chloride ion adsorption experiment were carried out for FA specimens. It was shown that Ca/Si ratio of C-S-H in each sample is decreased with and Al2O3/SiO2(Al/Si)ratio of C-S-H is increased with calcium leaching. The amount of chloride ion adsorption is linearly decreased with its Ca/Si ratio and Al/Si ratio. Finally, we established the equation for predicting the amount of chloride adsorption in C-S-H with different Ca/Si ratio and Al/Si ratio.
It is necessary to evaluate transport properties of concrete for lengthening the durability of concrete, therefore it is very important to measure the pore structure of hardened cement paste precisely in understanding mass transport properties. The electric conductivity by the AC impedance method have been suggested as simple and accurate technique to understand it, and the usefulness is reported in the case of hardened cement paste used with ordinary Portland cement. However, this technique has not been applied for hardened cement paste mixed with fly ash that has very high resistance to chloride ingress. In this study, chloride ingress and microstructure of the fly ash cement paste was investigated by the electric conductivity measurement. The AC impedance method was applied to measure the electric conductivity of specimen, and backscattered electron image analysis and mercury intrusion method was applied for measuring pore structure in fly ash cement paste. As a result, the conductivity of fly ash cement paste was strongly depended on degree of reaction of fly ash. It was shown that a very high correlation was shown in chloride diffusion coefficient and electric conductivity regardless of a fly ash replacement ratio.